Textile Industry: Can Social Responsibility Solve The Industry Problem?

In July 13th and August 23rd, Greenpeace released two international environmental organizations.

The textile and garment industry has a long industrial chain, which can cause pollution to the environment from raw material planting, spinning, weaving, printing and dyeing to sewing and finishing. Especially the upstream enterprises in the industrial chain are often polluting "big households".

If there is a problem, the public opinion will blame the brand enterprise, especially the big brand enterprise.

"Environmental protection is a problem that needs attention in the whole industry chain in the circulation market. This is logically established, but the ultimate focus is brand enterprises. Brand enterprises should use their influence to promote" greening "in all links, thus promoting the greening of the whole industrial chain.

Zhong Hongwu believes that brand enterprises are the source of "green" industry.

He said that the leading enterprises in the industry are more capable and more obliged to lead the whole industry's "greening" behavior.

The greater the brand, the greater the capacity, the greater the goal, the greater the responsibility.

In real life, people have the mentality of catching up and letting small ones.

This is a matter of reason. When a big brand enjoys glory, it will surely bear some pressure first. Some new responsibility issues must first point to large enterprises, and benchmarking enterprises are obliged to lead the positive evolution of the industry.

When some big clothing enterprises are publicized, what should they do? Zhong Hongwu thinks: "once the problems of enterprises are exposed, they should do well in research and explanation work. If their products are not a problem, they should give a reasonable reply to the public, and guide consumers to change from product safety to psychological safety, instead of simply indicating that their production process is in line with national standards; if their products have certain problems, enterprises should organize corresponding teams to conduct in-depth research and actively improve them.

Moreover, enterprises should go beyond the actual standards of the industry for deeper research.

Responsible brand enterprises should guide the society to develop better. "

Internal and external causes

"Cross ratio, China's textile and garment industry's social responsibility work started earlier, the overall consciousness is higher, belongs to the middle and upper level."

Zhong Hongwu said, "compared with other industries, the internationalization of textile and garment industry is very early and extraverted, and it has long been the international brand processing. This has promoted the social responsibility of Chinese textile and garment enterprises to a certain extent.

When the focus of social responsibility in many domestic enterprises is still on the donation, the focus of social responsibility of textile and garment enterprises has been laid on the substantive issues such as labor rights and production environment.

From the perspective of industry and social responsibility, the China Textile Industry Association has initiated and launched a corporate social responsibility management system for China's textile and garment enterprises, namely CSC9000T (ChinaSocialCompliance9000forTextile&ApparelIndustry), which is a social responsibility management system of Chinese textile enterprises based on relevant Chinese laws and regulations and relevant international practices.

It has two editions in 2008 and 2005, and environmental protection was added in 2008 compared with 2005.

Zhong Hongwu said: "this is considered as a social responsibility guide for China's Textile Industry Association, which is relatively advanced in all sectors of the country."

Although industry associations play a guiding role in the whole industry's social responsibility work, it is still difficult to play a strong role in the whole industry.

How to implement environmental protection in social responsibility instead of shouting slogans?

Zhong Hongwu told reporters: "internal and external factors must be considered."

From the internal point of view, enterprises should first broaden and deepen their understanding of the concept of social responsibility, rather than simply deal with the media and stay on the surface. Secondly, enterprises should see the value of social responsibility. In fact, if enterprises fulfill their social responsibilities, they will play a great role in creating their own brand and winning the trust of consumers.

The external factors mainly include the supervision of the state and the understanding of consumers. Enterprises should be put under more pressure.

Zhong Hongwu said that the abbreviation of NGO (English non-governmentorganization) refers to non-profit organizations which are not regarded as government associations, associations, foundations, charitable trusts, Non-Profit Corporation or other legal entities under specific legal systems.

In fact, it plays a very important role in supervision, which is a mainstream phenomenon in the West.

With the development of society, professional organizations in a certain field will put forward higher requirements for the industry, and such professional organizations will gradually influence legislation through group sports.

This kind of thing is also gradually appearing in China.

However, we should see that foreign NGO can play a role, mainly because they can affect consumer behavior.

In some advanced western countries, consumers' sense of responsibility is very strong. NGO's protest activities and related reports will affect the reputation of enterprises. Consumers will make a choice and exert a lot of pressure on the enterprises.

However, the environment of responsible consumption in China is not mature. Many consumers are very sensitive to price, but they do not care about the social responsibility of labor rights, environmental protection and so on. This weakens the effect of NGO protest in a certain extent.